Polish/Routine Questions

[stdwdh16]

Hello everyone. So I have a (new to me) 2000 F-150 with silver paint. Overall, the paint condition is good with minimal swirls and oxidation. As the weather is going to be nice this weekend, I was planning on doing a full detail. I have read many threads and have decided on this as my procedure:

1) Wash-Gold Class Shampoo
2) Clay-Smooth Surface Clay Kit
3) Swirl-X-to remove oxidation/swirls (Scratch-X/UC if necessary)
4) Polish-DC#2 or M-81 or M-07
5) Wax- NXT 2.0

As I have read MOL, it seems that the polish step may be unnecessary. Several threads have explicitly stated that darker colors benefit more from the polish step than the lighter colors. In the interest of time, (and effort as I will be working solely by hand) could/should this step be eliminated? This truck is my daily driver and I want to keep it looking nice and protect it well as I want it to last me until I get out of graduate school. Overall, does this sound like a good routine for care to you? I have read and tried to follow the 5-step paint care cycle closely. Thanks for all the input.

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Polish/Routine Questions

Meguiar's always states the polishing step with a pure polish after the prep steps is an optional step.

It is harder to see a major difference in results with lighter colors as compared to darker colors so you can skip the polishing step after your SwirlX step.

Besides that looks good!

Be sure to start by doing a Test Spot, that is test the products you're thinking about applying to the entire car to one small area or spot. Make sure you and your skills and abilities and the products you have chosen to use can make one small area look good before going over the entire car. If you can't make one small area look good you certainly won't be able to make the entire car look good.

Test spot